Sunday, August 28, 2005

Thing One, Thing Two

Both anti-same-sex-marriage ballot questions remain in trouble, for different reasons. The friable fundamentalists still outraged about homosexuals wedding have managed to create untenable positions at both of their extreme forks. They are scattered and soon to be shattered.

To review, there are two initiatives in the works.

For 2006, a question is half way through the process to the ballot. It would replace gay marriage with civil unions, but leave the existing same-sex marriages alone.

For 2008, the question is a DoMA (one-man/one-woman) initiative. This is a loser from the get-go, for a variety of reasons.

Forged in the fires of self-righteousness, the 2008 versions lacks both logic and legality. The latter aspect is deliciously ironic in that numerous anti-same-sex-marriage folk pretend that the process was never legalized in Massachusetts. They feign that only legislatures can make laws, while of course, all three branches of government can legalize various deeds and procedures as the federal and states' constitutions permit. Ho hum.

The DoMA one is essentially so similar to the other one, it will fail the test. The commonwealth constitution forbids similar initiatives from the ballot within three years of each other.

In addition, it seems an act of both desperation and dull-wittedness by its proposers. The 2006 question seems doomed. It barely passed the joint legislative constitutional-convention voting last time. It must pass twice in identical versions in successive annual votes to get on the ballot. The votes are no longer there, particularly because in its first full year, same-sex marriage is transparent and all the only problems have been those introduced by right-wing politicians (such as Governor Mitt Romney refusing to print birth certificates to reflect the new legality).

A majority of voters are in the get-over-it mode. The fundamentalists and their buddies have overplayed their hands on this one. Politicians are loath to buck such high poll numbers.

As it was becoming increasingly apparent that the 2006 version was likely to lose either in the constitutional convention or the election, the anti folk suddenly got religion. What they really meant, they said, was no gay unions or marriages or any of that Godless behavior. So, with a sudden moral call, they produced the DoMA version.

We predict that the 2008 one will be thrown out of the process because it so clearly violates the commonwealth constitution. However, we also predict that were it to go ahead, it would have a resounding loss at the ballot. After four years of transparent marriages, the public would be thinking, "What's all the fuss about, boys and girls?"